Acts 2:43

πάση ψυχῇ, i.e., every person, and so Acts 3:23, Hebraistic, cf. כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ, Leviticus 7:17; Leviticus 17:12, etc., and cf. 1Ma 2:38. In Acts 2:41 the plural is used rather like the Latin capita in enumerations, cf. Acts 7:14; Acts 27:37, and LXX, Genesis 46:15; Exodus 1:5; Numbers 19:18, etc. But Winer-Moulton (p. 194, Acts 22:7) would press the meaning of ψυχή here, and contends that the fear was produced in the heart, the seat of the feelings and desires, so that its use is no mere Hebraism, although he admits that in Romans 13:1 (1 Peter 3:20) the single πᾶσα ψυχή = every person, but see l.c. φόβος, cf. Acts 3:10, i.e., upon the non-believers, for “perfect love casteth out fear”. Friedrich notes amongst the characteristics of St. Luke that in his two books one of the results of miraculous powers is fear. Here the φόβος means rather the fear of reverential awe or the fear which acted quasi freno (Calvin), so that the early growth of the Church was not destroyed prematurely by assaults from without. There is surely nothing inconsistent here with Acts 2:47, but Hilgenfeld ascribes the whole of Acts 2:43 to his “author to Theophilus,” partly on the ground of this supposed inconsistency, partly because the mention of miracles is out of place. But it is nowhere stated, as Hilgenfeld and Weiss presuppose, that the healing of the lame man in Acts 3:1 ff. was the first miracle performed (see note there, and Wendt and Blass).